tacran
Posted : 9/12/2006 1:00:42 AM
On 9/11, I was in my car driving to work and heard the news on the radio (7:30 AM Pacific Time). I almost turned around and went home. I should have, since I got no work done that day, instead calling family back home in CT, trying to track down friends in NYC and DC. It was awful to be so far away when I wanted to be there with my friends and family. I spent days in front of the TV, and became a news junkie from that day on.
Today I visited a memorial that was set up at our local riverfront park. It was two sections of flags - one part of the park contained flags for every person who died on 9/11 and the other had them for everyone who has died in the war on terror since then. The flags in the 9/11 section were specially made - they contained the names of every person (tiny writing to fit them all, but legible). Instead of walking around the perimeter of the display, I walked into the middle of it. Once there, I was surrounded by flags, much taller than I, and seeming to go on forever. It was a gorgeous sky, just like the one in NYC that day, and all around me was the sound of them all fluttering in the strong breeze. It was very stirring. I kind of felt like the people's spirits were actively moving the flags. To walk through nearly 3000 flagpoles, set into neat rows, was a sure way to feel the magnitude of the loss of life.
When I read the names on the flags, they were of all kinds - Italian, Irish, Polish, Asian, Latino, Middle-eastern, etc. Obviously, the victims were as diverse as could be - all ages, races, walks of life. But when I looked at the entire display from a higher vantage point, it was a striking image of how they were all exactly the same (in death, anyway) -- all those identical flags flapping in the same direction -- they were all people who lost their lives in a senseless, tragic manner, leaving the same kinds of holes in the lives of people they left behind. Even 5 years later it's still incomprehensible.